December 29th, 2009

The ports of my first two games are complete. I’ve put both games here. If you play them let me know in the comments if you notice any bugs, or if something doesn’t unlock, or even if you just enjoyed them so I can know they’re working for people.

I was paranoid I would go all George Lucas on the game and so I swore to not change things, but I did end up doing that anyway, so I tried to only change stuff that few would notice. This doesn’t cover changes to the engine (of which there are many), except as it relates to gameplay.

NES style enemy regeneration for some enemies. When some enemies go offscreen, they’ll come back in their original position, rather than their last seen position. It was too hard to do this in the original version so I didn’t bother. Most enemies still keep the original behavior because they don’t work well when you change it.

New preloader. I believe I originally had Wily always running from Mega Man (I thought it was funny), than I started adding more robots, then I had everybody running from everybody else. I got a kick out of it, but whenever I see it now it looks tacky. I rationalized reasoned that a preloader isn’t really the game, so I could do as I like. Even though people’s Internet connections are a lot faster these days, the preloader is really there so the game doesn’t start without the user’s expressed input. Also, since it’s unlikely Flash itself will have focus, it’s also a trick to get the user to click on the game and give it focus. The new preloader also serves yet another purpose…

Controller instructions. I’ve always considered the audience for my games to be the type of people who, at the slightest indication of boredom, will vanish. Looking for the controls is soooo booooring. Now they’re in the preloader and you can even fool around a bit while the game is loading.

New weapon. I’ve replaced the unconscionably boring S.Missle weapon you get when you finish Mega Man vs Metroid with a new one. For the sake of surprise I won’t tell you here, but I love it and I hope it gives my games more replay value. I’ve also made the other unlockable weapon more powerful. In other words, neither unlockable weapons suck anymore.

Better collision detection. The old system was a bit sensitive, due to some sacrifices I made for image quality. In the old days a rendering bug gave images this annoying 1 pixel border thing. My solution to the problem was to give each image a transparent 1 pixel border so even if the rendering bug was there, you could not see it because it would only affect the transparent border. Since I used hitTest for collision detection, that meant it was a little easier to get hit than I intended, by 2 pixels. This always bugged me but not many people seemed to notice and I didn’t have any better ideas at the time.

Samus is a little smarter.Â I noticed some mistakes in Samus’s attack routine where she walks along the ground and shoots you. It’s hard to notice because she usually falls back on a bombing run instead.

Arthur is a little smarter. The way Arthur detected incoming projectiles was a little clunky, so I improved it a bit. I actually went too far and he became the one, so I had to introduce a little chaos to make him less superhuman.

AIR version (WIP). I always wanted to let people download the game, but I couldn’t find an easy/free way to do it. I’m actually stuck on a significant problem, which I’m trying to resolve, so this is still incomplete. When I do get it working you’ll also get…

Fullscreen. Not just bigger too, but the game actually formats to the size of the screen! Widescreen NES. I think it’s pretty cool. This only comes with the future AIR edition, since Flash doesn’t yet allow keyboard input in fullscreen to the degree that the game needs.

6 Responses to “Mega Man vs BrokenFunction”

BOTH
1. Whenever you hold a charge shot and enter a boss battle, the shot automatically fires.

2. After you die or complete a level while a special weapon is equipped, the weapon bar is there for the entire duration of the flash game. Even if you use the same weapon again, the previous bar is still there.

3. Samus’s Special weapon is still the Samus Missile graphic when you pause. This should be updated to the new weapon.

VS. Ghost & Goblins
1. When the moving platforms move upwards and you pause the game, once you unpause, you go right through the platform.

That’s all I can remember for now. I really do like the new touches you put in some of the gameplay like the zombies holding jars, and Protoman’s sprite is updated to the MM9 version, though I think it’s on purpose that his shield doesn’t work (at least that’s what I think) or his charge shot is the same as Mega Man’s. I thought he looked more bright red than… that maroonish color. Also, is there really a 3rd extra weapon? Anyways, thanks for a great job at this game.

2. Yeah, I noticed that one too, not sure what’s going on there yet. (FIXED)

GNG

1. Wow, I never would’ve noticed that. (FIXED)

I went to the trouble of preparing zombies holding jars years ago but never put it in. When I noticed I had to use them.

Protoman (and his shield) are kinda lame in MM9, so I picked different upgrades. He runs faster. I might throw in something else, I’m still considering it. (I modified him to keep the shield on his back, so FIXED?) I’ll check up on his colors — now that you mention it, I don’t think I got them from the “official” version. (You’re right about the colors actually, FIXED)

It’s me again. Anyways, I got a friend to help look for bugs for me. Also note that this reflects on the downloadable version too.

BOTH
1. There seems to be a brief pause after you slide, so you really can’t walk, jump or slide again during that pause.

2. The charging up sound pauses when it goes to the maximum power, so there is no smooth transition. Also, the full charge sound is softer than the charging up sound.

3. When you pause as Proto Man, it still says M. Buster. Oh, and his name is two words apparently, so you may wanna fix that on the character select screen.

METROID

1. When you first go to the vertical room, then choose the top most door, then pass through that room, the acid in that room does not damage you or make you recoil.

2. If you die while fighting Samus, the Boss Music keeps on playing while the other tracks also play, so you can end up having two boss themes playing at the same time when you refight Samus.

GAMEPLAY COMMENTS

1. Is there a reason why the charge has to cancel before you fight a boss? This does not happen in other Mega Man games.

2. Samus’s new weapon should have more ammo. You only have 14 shots of it and it takes about 3 hits to kill a weak, so you can only kill about 4 weak enemies total with it. Therefore, it would take up a lot of the ammo to kill stronger enemies. I think the normal 28 shots should be enough.

3. Weaknesses don’t seem to play much into this game since Samus’s weapon only does 2 damage, Arthur’s does 3, and a full charge shot does 3 damage on both bosses. Maybe you can adjust this better?

2. I have obsessed over this, but there is no way I’ve found to reliably fix this due to some limitations in Flash and my personal requirement that the game be Flash 9.

3. His thought name was spelled Protoman somewhere, I can’t remember where now. Wikipedia disagrees. I never would’ve thought to change the name of the buster, but you’re right I think. (FIXED, and in the upgrade sequence too)

METROID
1. Yes, you’re right. An oversight. (FIXED)

2. Whoops. (FIXED)

GAMEPLAY COMMENTS

1. Sort of, the game takes control over Mega Man during these sequences and releases all the buttons. Perhaps I can change that, let me think about it. (Decided to change it, FIXED)

2. It’s not meant to kill enemies, but to freeze them so they can be used as platforms. It’s pretty ineffective as a weapon and I tried to let the lance take up that role. Do you disagree? I’m open to ideas but I was actually considering making it less powerful.

3. I never planned this part much in advance, just weapons I thought would be fun. I always thought the alternative weapons were mostly useless in Mega Man games except against bosses. I’d do the same with my game, except there’s not enough bosses. Assume there’s a balance between them all – but in order to see it you’d need 6 more levels.

I think that it should have some offense usage. In fact, it does the same thing as Ice Man’s version of Ice Slasher in Mega Man: Powered Up, and it takes 2 hits to kill a weak enemy with it. For Metroid games, the power level is about the same your Vs Metroid game. Since, you do have other weapons though, I would not increase the weapon’s strength, but I don’t think it would help much decreasing it’s strength either since I haven’t found any particular places where it was really useful to just freeze the enemy. I think the only adjustment that really should be made is to give it the full 28 shots than the 14 shots since I do tend to find myself using up a lot of ammo, and there is not much leeway if you miss the shot. Plus, if you want it to be used primarily for making platforms, it wouldn’t make much sense to have it be so expensive.

On a side note, once you figure out the weapon specs, remember to update your embedded flash version too. Thanks for the changes.